


Negative Space

by duckmoles



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Clothing, Grief/Mourning, Hurt No Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-21
Updated: 2018-06-21
Packaged: 2019-05-26 05:44:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14994047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duckmoles/pseuds/duckmoles
Summary: If he closes his eyes and breathes, he can still catch the smell of Tony’s aftershave and shampoo.





	Negative Space

**Author's Note:**

> For the Tony Stark Bingo 2018.  
> Square K3: Character Death

Steve wakes up from a dream, the phantom feeling of a kiss lingering on his lips. The room is dark, but with his enhanced eyesight, he can still clearly see the piles of clothes covering the floor. A taunt.

“JARVIS,” he says. “What time is it?”

“It is three thirty four in the morning.”

JARVIS’s voice is a beacon of serenity. Like this, Steve can almost pretend that Tony’s slipped out of bed early, struck by an idea or a project and racing down to the workshop to work on it. He can imagine climbing out of bed, missing the warmth and comfort of Tony, and going down to find him, sweaty and flicking through the holograms in front of him, taking apart his newest Iron Man armor to make it 4% faster or 6% lighter.

“JARVIS,” Steve says. “What time is it?”

“It is three thirty five in the morning.”

Steve closes his eyes.

He doesn’t know why he stays in this room, not with all its ghosts. (He does know. It has to do with the way that sometimes, if he breathes deeply, he can still catch the smell of Tony’s aftershave and shampoo. It has to do with the way Tony’s clothes are scattered across the floor, thrown throughout the room as if he just rummaged around in his closet, looking for the perfect shirt to wear to a gala.)

Steve can’t sleep, no matter how much he tries the breathing exercises Bruce had taught him. He climbs out of bed. “Lights, JARVIS.”

The lights come on. Steve blinks as the room slowly comes into focus around him, the shapes solidifying from shadow into color, into something more real.

He almost steps on one of Tony’s shirts – a silky thing in dark red that Steve remembers pulling off the night before everything happened – as he treads across the room to the door. These days, the mansion is silent, even with all the people coming in and out to give their condolences, gutted by the absence of Tony, as if his very presence was what powered the building.

Steve makes his way to the gym, passing by the treadmill – broken for a week now – and heading straight to the punching bag hung up in the center of the room. He doesn’t bother wrapping up his hands before swinging, but he does take a silver ring off his finger.

When he finishes, he’s panting heavily and his knuckles are bleeding. They’ll heal within the next hour. “JARVIS,” he calls out as he exits the gym. “The time?”

“Five in the morning, Sir.”

He could go back to the gym, hang another punching bag and work out until his knuckles are scraped raw enough that the wounds will stay longer than half a day. He could go back to that haunted room and finally put away Tony’s clothes that have sat, abandoned, for over a month.

Steve remembers the morning of, how Tony had rifled through his closet, flinging shirts and pants and ties everywhere. “It’s my birthday, Steve,” Tony had said, smiling as he held up a collared button-up for Steve to look at. He must’ve seen something in the expression on Steve’s face, because he threw that aside and started digging again.

Tony had finally emerged with a cheesy Captain America shirt with a drawing of Steve on it straight from the comics, shield held out as he raced toward the viewer.

Then, he’d dragged Steve out of the room for breakfast, promising that he’d call someone to fix up the room.

Steve puts the ring back on and climbs up the stairs into the bedroom. JARVIS had opened up the windows, and the weak light of dawn streams through the glass, bathing everything in a warm morning glow.

Steve picks up the button-up shirt Tony had considered wearing. It’s soft – Tony had only worn the best fabrics possible – and Steve has the sudden urge to bury his face in it. He doesn’t, instead folding it up as small as he can and placing it in the drawer in the closet. He does that with the shorts thrown across the chair. He puts away the ties wrapped up together by the foot of the bed. He squares away every article of clothing until the room looks spotless.

And then, he sits.

The room looks larger now. The floors are clean, except for a small stain where – where Tony had been holding a glass of wine when Steve pushed him against the wall. But other than that, there’s no sign that Tony had ever been there at all. This could be Steve’s bedroom, Steve’s gym, Steve’s living room and front door and kitchen and bathroom.

He hasn’t gone into the workshop yet.

Steve stands up from the bed. The room is lit now, the sun fully over the horizon. The sky is clear and bright blue in a way it hasn’t been for weeks. The last time the sky was so clear and so stunningly blue, Steve had watched as Tony was blown to pieces.

Tony had laughed, as Steve turned away for a brief moment, distracted by a stray crash. They had kissed, seconds before that. An hour before, they had been eating dinner, giggling at how cake frosting smeared across Steve’s upper lip. Two hours before that, Steve had given Tony a full sketchbook he had drawn, full of Tony.

Steve stumbles his way into the workshop.

Unlike the rest of the house, it looks like Tony just stepped out for a brief moment. Pieces of the Iron Man suit sit, abandoned on a side table. A half-disassembled engine sits across from that. Scraps of Steve’s last suit lay next to the armor. There are a discarded pair of cufflinks on a side table; Steve picks them up and slips them into his pockets.

Steve wonders, not for the first time, what Tony had been working on.

After Steve had given Tony the sketchbook, Tony had pulled out his own gifts, ignoring Steve’s protests: a hefty amount of funding to a veterans’ shelter and a simple, silver ring.

“The ring,” Tony had explained, showing off his matching ring, “has a small tracker in it. If you compress it just so – it’ll activate. It’ll work the other way around too. That way we’ll always be able to find each other.”

Steve fiddles with the ring on his fingers. The metal is warped slightly from when he’d pressed so hard he nearly snapped the thing in half.

He can’t do this. Steve turns and heads up the stairs. He enters the bedroom, grabbing his shield and lacing on a pair of boots.

“JARVIS,” he calls before he leaves, “I’m going to the Avengers facility. Lock this place down. Don’t let anyone enter.”

“Of course,” JARVIS replies.

Steve can almost feel Tony’s arms wrapped around him as he drives his bike. He breathes in, deeply, and imagines.


End file.
